“The signage and the kindness meters seem to be doing a fairly decent job of pushing some of the panhandling from those locations where we were having significant issues,” the city’s manager of protective services Clint Kanester says. “I think it has really made a difference.”

In the first two weeks, the five kindness meters collected roughly 12 pounds of coinage. One pound of coins is, on average, worth about $36, Kanester says. All proceeds are donated to local organizations such as the John Howard Society, Upper Room Mission and the Salvation Army.

“My staff have even heard people say to panhandlers, ‘sorry, I can’t give you money today, I put it in the kindness meter,” Kanester says. “We love seeing people putting money in the meters because it’s going to the right places.”

Kanester says there has been a ‘noticeable reduction’ in the amount of aggressive panhandling taking place, and a substantial reduction in complaints about it from the public.

We welcome your comments and opinions on our stories but play nice. We won't censor or delete comments unless they contain off-topic statements or links, unnecessary vulgarity, false facts, spam or obviously fake profiles. If you have any concerns about what you see in comments, email the editor in the link above.

OPINION Retired NASA climate scientist, James Hansen, commented in a recent interview that he wasn't terribly worried about the potential of CO2 to disrupt climate back in the 1980s because he “...thought th